Catholics pull out of Whitby service

FEARS that an interchurch commemoration of the dissolution of Whitby Abbey, North Yorkshire, 450 years ago may be "misunderstood pastorally" by Catholics attending the event, has led to the breakdown of plans for a service of reconciliation at the famous monastery.
Catholics have dropped out of the ecumenical event which was to be part of a week-long festival marking the dissolution by Henry VIII in 1539 of the now ruined abbey. The Revd Ben Hopkinson, Rector of Whitby and a principal organiser of the event, said he felt Bishop Augustine Harris of Middlesbrough had decided to boycott the service because Catholic participation may be "misunderstood pastorally".
"I think there may have been fears on the part of Catholic authorities that the festival will be seen as a celebration of the dissolution of the monasteries, rather than a commemoration of what was a very nasty and shameful period in history," he said.
Organisers of the festival, to be held between June 25 and July 2, see Whitby Abbey as an ideal site for an ecumenical service of reconciliation because it was there that the Synod of Whitby in 664 decided that the infant Church in England should establish ties with Rome. The Revd Hopkinson was careful to point out that responsibility for the dissolution of the monasteries did not lie with Protestants, but with sixteenth century society as a whole. Henry VIII saw himself as a Catholic, he stressed. "This was meant to be a service of penitence, not only for the sin of disunity, but for responsibility in what is a blot on the nation's conscience."
Middlesbrough diocesan authorities for their part declined to comment on the matter, saying that such silence had been agreed at a meeting of the festival's organising committee. The Princess Royal had agreed to attend the service of reconciliation. "I don't know if she will visit now," said the Revd Hopkinson.